


As I Am Hearing

by bloodofthepen



Series: The Stuff of Dreams [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 15:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofthepen/pseuds/bloodofthepen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Solas felt, beneath the soles of his feet, cool soil as it molded and turned and pressed against his skin—soil that remembered more flecks and fragments than the collective knowledge of the elves. Moist loam and gentle mosses recalled his steps, and the Fade tugged, gentle as a breeze, in the air around him."</p><p>Solas finds a moment of reflection in this world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As I Am Hearing

Solas felt, beneath the soles of his feet, cool soil as it molded and turned and pressed against his skin—soil that remembered more flecks and fragments than the collective knowledge of the elves. Moist loam and gentle mosses recalled his steps, and the Fade tugged, gentle as a breeze, in the air around him.

 _Fen’Harel_.

 _Revas_. _Revas_.

He pushes the words away like leaves on the tide, caught in the current and dragged downstream.

 _Solas_.

He wonders what she thinks of his name. The way she smiles, lets her tongue trill along the syllables, warms him as it should not. 

A quickened child, she skips ahead of him, bare feet dancing among smooth pebbles and damp leaf-litter. A wise soul, her fingers test bark and her lungs rattle with the heady scent of old rainfall and bitter deathroot.

 _Enera_ —named for dreams, for the sleep that brings peace and makes all things possible.

 _Solas_ —branded for pride.

She tilts her head to look at him, and the valaslin of June catches dappled sunlight. She says his name, and it sings on a summer breeze, a memory of Elvhenan bittersweet. A new memory of this world-in-the-making, fresh as a young sprig of elfroot coiling up through the underbrush, stretching toward the sun-lit canopy, lives in the curve of her lips.

“Lethallan?”

It slips off his tongue, heavy. _  
_

_My friend, my clan_.

Mistake.

But… he cannot deny it. Not the Dalish, not the tepid Circle mages, nor the wan city elves could wrest that kinship from him.

She looks at him with eyes as bright as the Breach, as the mark on her palm— _my mark_ —that sings sweetly, gentle and soft and low, humming in the space between them. She smiles, and he knows it true: lethallan.

For a moment, he sees her draped in starlight.

Under the crystal canopies and towering spires that brushed the sky, so many centuries long past; it is easy to imagine her there, clothed in the light of the moon, skin kissed by dappled sun as magic sings in the air between them, the voice of the Fade not muffled, but an orchestral movement like the very breezes of this waking world. Stars sparkle in her hair, grace her brow, and his heart falls to her. 

But there are only quiet sunbeams that cross the planes of her dark face, and still he has seen nothing more beautiful in this waking world. 

“Solas—you said the artefact was near here?” 

“I did. My apologies, lethallan.”

She chuckles, and steps aside to let him lead. “It seems you speak the common tongue more readily than elvhen.”

“I was merely distracted.” He smiles as he steps past, catching her scent—leather and thyme, warm, tangled in the close air. “The old language on your tongue is sweeter than any sound I’ve yet heard in this age.”

Her laugh is light, and he resists the urge to turn and find the faint flush upon her cheeks. “Better than the song of the Fade?”

“When I say _this age_ , I of course mean _this world_. But the music of your voice comes close, indeed.” 

_Closer than anything_. But he has said too much already. 

Her breath comes quicker, the faint rattle in her chest finding a rhythm of its own among the whisper of leaves and call of birds between the branches.  

Solas sets his mind on the path ahead. 

_Lethallan_. 

What harm is there in finding something worthwhile?

**Author's Note:**

> A little something for actual cinnamon roll postscriptforfinales (on Tumblr) in time for Valentine’s Day, who requested a Solas piece with lots of nature and a sort of soothing tone. 
> 
> The title comes from a line in “All This and Heaven Too“ by Florence and the Machine.


End file.
